Quote of the day:
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing. - Redd Foxx

Quote of the day:
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. - Lily Tomlin

I was told the other day that I talk like a writer. I was perplexed for a moment because I could not picture in my mind how exactly a writer talks. That may sound quite odd coming from someone that has just been told they speak with a particular voice and happens to be a wannabe writer. I am more used to hearing from people that I sound like a Yankee or that I have a Southern drawl. And the truth is I have a neutral accent that is more likely to earn me a leering, “You ain’t from around here are’ya boy?” no matter where I am.

So what is this new thing that makes me sound like a writer? Is it simply a new jargon added to my current lexicon, or is it some idiom or pattern of speech? I’ve read what a lot of writers have had to say in their stories, articles, manuals, essays, and even their opinions about writing. I do not believe that I have ever heard a writer speak, and if I have, I am not sure I would have been able to say they were a writer just by listening to them. Or maybe I could have. Maybe their choice of words or perhaps their brevity of saying more with less would clue me in. Maybe it would be the way they describe people, places, and things with the use of similes and metaphors. Surely that would be a solid clue. But I don’t think I was speaking that way, nor was I carefully choosing words. What made “me” sound like a writer to the person I was speaking to?

I told this person very simply, yes I would like to be a writer, but really didn’t consider myself much of one at this point in history.

“See that’s what I mean”, she quipped.

“Thank you”, I said, trying not to blush and still not getting it.

I still don’t see it, or hear it. If I am starting to sound like a writer when I talk, maybe with luck, I may begin to sound like one when I write. I do want to write. Digging out the deeply buried fossils, “stories”, is the hardest thing for me. It is something I am struggling with daily. I want to write stories, articles, and essays. I’d love to be paid to do those things, though I may never be. Not being paid isn’t keeping me from writing, that would be silly. First you have to write to get paid and then you have to be damn lucky or damn special to get paid for doing it. I’m neither lucky nor special, so I will never really expect to get paid for anything I actually ever write. It would be nice to write the next great American novel and even nicer to get rewarded handsomely for it. I suppose something to keep in mind, writing is like a model airplane, it doesn’t have to be perfect to fly.

You know it sucks when you take some pills that are supposed to make you “feel” better, and they don’t. It really sucks when you take them and you lose interest in everything. I seriously have absolutely no desires anymore. I still feel emotional, in some ways, about people, places, and things. But I have almost zero or possibly less than zero interest in anything. Even worse there are certain things that I am actually starting to hate.

My computer for instance. I used to really enjoy being on my computer. Earlier this year I was even enjoying writing about lots of things while on my computer. Now I start to feel physically ill when I am on my computer. I get restless, my head hurts, and my stomach clenches. I think it may be a little worse if I am thinking about writing and being on the computer at the same time. I know I am writing now, I sort of feel like I have to. In all seriousness I am thinking about getting rid of this thing. Sure I have one more computer as back up, it is an ancient, memory deficient, slow beast and I honestly don’t care. Heck I may go to Good Will or the Salvation Army and get an old electric typewriter if I unload this thing. I am serious. That is how tired I am of this stupid computer.

The only thing stopping me really is the fact that there are some shows that I like to watch that require me to have a computer, this computer specifically. I don’t want to give up my shows, but sometimes, even with my favorites, I am checking the clock to see if they are nearly over. Not because I don’t want them to end, but because I DO.

I read the comics that I have been reading for a long time now, some since I can remember, and all I can think about is pruning half or more of them out of my daily read. Yes, it is something I am probably going to do this week. The only reason I haven’t done it already; I don’t feel like going in and changing the program I wrote that goes and gets them, even though all I have to do is add a couple of #’s! Those little # just tell the program to not read those any more. Pretty easy. Pretty damn boring.

I started a family page with a CMS called Joomla. You can see it here. There isn’t much there, but there is a small photo gallery in my section of the site. Most everything else is just sample text. Oh, and I added a forum. Some of it was complex, but just follow the directions and there you go. The point is, after I installed it and added a few things I completely lost interest. So basically ten bucks wasted. I could have lost interest at home for free. I could have used the ten bucks for Skype.

So there is the tip of the iceberg of my problem set. I am not sure what to do about it, I don’t know if it is my medication; I basically don’t know anything. Me not knowing anything really isn’t anything all that new either. And so it goes.

Just sayin’.

It’s driving me insane, this need to write wound tightly with not being able to get a single word out of my soggy brain. Other people do it every single day. Why not me? What is causing this mental block that prevents me from expressing my imagination? Over the past several months I haven’t even been able to write about not writing. Now that is frustrating. But I get tired of talking about it and it gets to the point where it feels more like whining than anything else. I know everyone says to just write, even if you aren’t saying much, at least you are writing. I even have a desktop wall paper that basically says if you aren’t dead, write. So here we are, writing about not writing again. Writing the word writing over and over in the shortest number of sentences, even in the writing of a single sentence. I know I shouldn’t keep writing it over and over again, it feels somehow OCD, and it is becoming annoying. What a nightmare this writing hobby has become.

I have even grown weary of approaching my computer. I get almost physically ill when I sit down to do anything on it. The comics I enjoy are becoming more and more lame; I can barely bring myself to read them. Email that I get on a daily basis is either dull or depressing. Dull because it is almost always the same crap over and over. Depressing because there are ads for things that I would really like to have but most likely never will. Every tech story now is about tablets, slates, and ebook readers; things I will never own, but often dream about.

Ah, and here is another pointless thing to whine about, but what the hell, whine while the whining is good. I am not going to be anywhere close to my reading goal this year. Some of the books I have chosen to read are way out of my normal genera and they are taking me forever to read. It’s not that they aren’t good books, and it’s certainly not that they are especially challenging, but they are especially boring. Well, they are boring to me anyway. The current book I have been churning slowly through is actually pretty good, it just doesn’t hold my interest well enough to eagerly turn the pages. The book is Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan. I would recommend this book to anyone, it’s a good story and it is well told, it just happens to be something that is way off my hit list. I have almost finished reading it, though it has taken me far longer than it should have. Grab it at the library, buy a paperback, whatever, and give it a read. This is the first Amy Tan book I have read, almost read, but I would consider it a good jumping in point for reading more of her novels. I will probably read The Bone Crushers Daughter after I have read some “faster” books. I have a lot of work to do if I am going to read even 50 books by the end of the year.

I am not sure how this post will look, as I am posting it from drivel. I think if I set it up correctly it should look like the rest of my posts. I haven't written in a long time, I've had and pretty much still have a serious case of writers block. Which in a nutshell means I've been too damn lazy to write anything. I am not sure if I will be able to keep up with the furious pace I was writing at the beginning of the year, but I will try to fill in some space more often than I have been the past several months.

I finally got around to watching an interesting little movie called "Finding Forrester". It's not a bad movie, and it is about writing, but it was sort of hard for me to get into. I do like movies with Sean Connery in them though. I'm not going to review the movie, but if you are into movies about writing or just happen to like Connery, you will get through the movie just fine.

I have a feeling that my days of 1000+ word postings has come to an end, at least for now. It's depressing not having anything to say, but when one doesn't do anything it's not likely that one will have much to say. That has been my feeling about it lately. Well like I said, short and sweet.

Somewhere along the way I lost my inspiration. I know where it went, but I’m not sure how to get it back. I’m not sure what I did to lose it. Like everything else it just went away. I can’t explain it, it’s unexplainable. I want it back, it felt good writing, writing about writing, and just bull shitting about everything else. I was enjoying it. Then, it was gone.

I feel utterly useless. I barely even care about writing at this point, even though it is something I truly like to do. Maybe I am too empty. I’ve gone far too long not really feeling anything. I don’t mean that I don’t have feelings, I do. I do believe that I don’t feel deeply like I should, especially like an author should. I can’t reach deep enough inside myself. I am afraid that my words could hurt me or others. I don’t ever want to hurt anyone, so I try to be careful. Being careful feels like fear. Fear keeps my feet dry.

I never got around to explaining my uselessness. I am you know. I can’t do or say anything right. No I’m not being too hard on myself. I am telling the truth. I am tired all the time, I barely have the motivation to get out of bed in the morning. How can I be motivated to do anything else? The truth is I’m not. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m not sure I remember how to live. I feel trapped by my stupidity and lethargy.

I need my inspiration back. I need something that motivates me and makes me feel whole. Maybe a real hobby. Maybe something that I can really get into and never get tired of. I’ve tried so many different things that I can’t think of a single thing that I could truly get into. Well maybe one thing, but what if I got tired of that, where the hell would that leave me. I need to think of something fast, or I may just find that rock to live under that I have written about before, not too many years ago.

more to come, hopefully. . . . . . .

Here are some of the things I’d like to do before I can’t do those types of things anymore or at least before I die.

1. Learn to sail
2. Learn to play piano
3. Own a piano
4. Fly a plane
5. Write a book
6. Write a movie
7. Write an episode for a TV show
8. Ride in a Limo
9. Visit Paris
10. Visit London
11. Visit Glasgow
12. Tour Maine in the Fall
13. Go on an Alaskan cruise
14. Visit Hawaii
15. Learn Tai Chi
16. Visit Japan
17. Live in the mountains
18. Sail solo across the Atlantic
19. Hunt for deer and actually bag one
20. Reconnect with my oldest child

Some of those will almost certainly never happen. I think it doesn’t hurt to dream a little now and then though. The weirdest one up there, at least to some people, is probably sailing the Atlantic solo. Honestly it’s just something that has always been in the back of my mind since I read about someone else doing it.

I happen to think sailing across the Atlantic solo would be an interesting adventure. The trip takes a little over a month with conditions in your favor. Of course learning to sail would have to happen long before an adventure like this could be anything more than a wild and crazy dream. Just think for a moment, if it were ever possible, the things you would learn about yourself and the life altering experience you would have at the end of your voyage. It would be fantastic and extremely empowering.

I’m not sure if any of the things on my list are possible. They are just dreams. Or flights of fancy. Learning Tai Chi is actually something I am trying to do already. Unfortunately I have to make the attempt for videos I have borrowed from the library. Basically this will be one of those wait and see deals. I would feel 100% better about it if I had some sort of instructor, a living breathing individual that could guide me through it all. I’ll try. It’s one of those things that I have wanted to learn for many years now. I’ll keep you posted of any progress, as long as there is progress to talk about.

I should probably print this list. You never know, right? I could probably add a lot more to it, and it’s not in any particular order. Each one is something I want to accomplish at some point. Each one is something I would like to remember to dream about once in a while. Maybe someday, one or more will contribute to the others. And maybe I could win the lottery. Maybe I should consider buying a ticket once in a while.

My neck and shoulder are still bothering me. Though neither hurts as much as they have been hurting the past week. I won’t go so far as to say they are getting better.

Sadly this is pretty much it tonight. I just wanted to share my misery. Honestly it’s the only thing I can think about. If I happen to think about anything else I may pop in and write it down. At this point, I don’t see that happening in the foreseeable future. That being said, I’d like to leave you with one final word…

OUCH!